


Paying The Price

by shinobi93



Category: Henry IV - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2 - Shakespeare, The Hollow Crown (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Assassination, Crimes & Criminals, Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinobi93/pseuds/shinobi93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two ways to hurt Ned Poins, ex-spy turned criminal, and one involves the heir to the throne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paying The Price

**Author's Note:**

> Because I will never be over angry criminal Poins. Apologies for it not being a particularly original idea (I've even written things including some aspects), but I liked the combination of this, and I've never written Hal as a modern prince. Also apologies for filling up the tags with tiny things, but there's not much, after all.
> 
> Warning for reference to canonical character death. Also assassination, but it's not described.

There are two ways to hurt Ned Poins, the redundant first name serving to remind people via a blunt echo what they’ll be if they mess with him.

The first, the easier of the two in most eyes, is to threaten his little sister. The middle of three children, he has taken up the protector mantle that his brother did not, and with such an overt surname, it is not difficult to track her down.

Tracking her down is as far as anyone gets.

The second, the way paved with knives and broken glass and snipers waiting for a single slip, is to go after the Prince of Wales. Already a dangerous occupation, for the royal family takes its security as seriously as might be expected, but none of the others have a vicious ex-spy as additional, unofficial protection. Harry appears in the spotlight, knowing that somewhere in the shadows, he is being watched over. Much later, having lost his loyal bodyguards who are the few to know his secret, he retires to a much more secure location, where he is called ‘Hal’ by a man who takes off his gun last of all.

Poins should be dead by now, but he is slight and easily forgettable, and will fuck you up if he thinks you’re a threat. A trail of loyalty forged by money, which he cares not for himself. Why would he, when a royal prince would give him anything he asked for? He asks for nothing though, save his time and the odd pack of cigarettes. Hal always has fags, for smoking is one of the last acts of rebellion in the modern age.

How does a wanted criminal hide with such a famous connection? It is easy. Whilst the media asks who the prince will marry, whether he will go entirely off the rails and those favouring a republic will get their way, Poins lurks just outside that spotlight, letting the sudden darkness paint an immediate contrast. An optical illusion. Stare too close into the sun; do not see what waits beside.

In certain circles, his history is well-versed: young recruit, sharp, but angry. One day fell off the radar; reappeared next as the whispered name behind the assassination of a top banker. Other crimes: random-seeming, scattered. A reputation built so masterfully some think he must have consulted for advice on how to achieve it. Corruption, disguise, an elaborate bluff by the secret service: a selection of possible answers to the question that follows this history.

Why hasn’t he been caught? Because he’s good, because he plots four steps in advance, and because he can bring the heir to the throne to his knees in two seconds flat.

There are three people in the world who know about Hal and Poins, as they have never been called, and not only are all three the inner sanctum of the prince’s personal security, sworn to protect him no matter what, but they also all have information held over their heads by his criminal boyfriend. Doubly careful. When they retreat, entrusting the successor to the crown’s entire safety to a man who reportedly learnt Latin for a small detail in the killing of a millionaire brothel owner, they guard an empty room and pretend to know nothing.

If you find out about the second way to hurt Ned Poins, you’ll be dead before you can even consider how to use it against him. People will pay the price for who they love.

(There is, later, a third way, but the disappearance of an ex-spy criminal is not one to be questioned for long, and not, of course, linked by anyone to the recent ascendance of a certain prince. The prince himself hears the echoes of _I will not get in your way_ for years to come, as he gains a wife and an heir of his own, but his mind is strangely silent the day the bullet hits. It’s an assassination anyone would be proud of.)


End file.
